The OpenADR Alliance will launch today to foster the development, adoption, and compliance of a standard known as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR).

Automated demand response can help businesses and homeowners to reduce their electricity consumption during periods of peak energy demand, by automating message delivery from the utility directly to the end customer. Customers typically enroll to receive the signals, together with some form of compensation when they reduce demand on cue.

OpenADR standardizes a message format so that dynamic price and reliability signals can be delivered in a uniform and interoperable data model among utilities, grid operators, and customer energy management and control systems.

Standards for automated demand response could ultimately lower the cost, improve the reliability and accelerate the speed of smart grid implementations in the United States. Some 60 control vendors globally have implemented OpenADR. The industry has lacked an organization responsible for the education, training, testing and certification needed to bring this technology to market.

Jeremy Eaton, vice president of energy solutions at Honeywell, said the widespread adoption of an OpenADR standard will lower the development, equipment and service costs for smart grid vendors and utilities. "It will ultimately benefit homeowners and businesses because open standards spur competition and innovation, and will lead to more effective smart grid technologies and greater energy and cost savings," he added.

The OpenADR Alliance says it will foster the collaboration necessary to ensure the rapid deployment of OpenADR. National standards work will be built upon the OpenADR specifications published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and funded by the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. OpenADR is being further developed through the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Smart Grid-standards effort. Expect to see the OpenADR Alliance work with related organizations such as the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and others.